


Kids in the Dark

by crownlessliestheking



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, High School AU, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Romance, Slash, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 04:15:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3922507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are. Are you mocking me?" Bilbo Baggins, honor student extraordinaire, future linguistics (PhD, he hoped very much) expert, and first in the class ranking, drew himself up to his full height of just barely 5'1.<br/>"Yes, yes I am," Thorin 'Oakenshield' Durin, delinquent and the school's greatest menace-aside from Azog and Bolg, of course-, casually blew a bubble with the offensively green gum in his mouth, letting it pop insolently into the silence.<br/>Their first meeting is explosive. It only gets better from there.<br/>(HIATUS)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ask, and thy shall receive. Second on the list of AUs I posted on my tumblr, I absolutely love this one and hope you enjoy it!  
> (We can pretend that I've started the next chapter of Faulty Wiring and Thanks, Gandalf, but that's not quite true. I did start Elements of Design and Sleazy, if it helps?)

"This is entirely your fault." 

The words have been building inside him for the entire day, and he doesn't care that his voice goes alarmingly shrill, nor that his face turns an almost ridiculous shade of red when he's angry-or so he's been told. 

"Yes," the other agrees, fixing him with an impassive stare with piercing blue eyes. 

"And I don't deserve to be here, it was just a blood coincidence, I tell you," he continues on, pacing about the empty classroom, with 'DETENTION' scrawled across the chalkboard in accusatory, condemning letters. 

"Of course not."

"And this is going to go on my permanent record," Bilbo whispers with the sense of finality of a doomed man before the guillotine. This was completely unfair, he’d protested to Headmaster Elrond, who simply looked at him with a sad sort of smile before dooming him to his fate-three weeks in detention. It honestly wasn’t his fault that he’d gotten mixed up in one of the bloody Company’s (or whatever it was they called themselves) pranks while trying to avoid Smaug.

Maybe he could blame the entire thing on Smaug. If he hadn’t been avoiding the other teen, then he wouldn’t have tripped right over Thorin Durin, bowling him over and knocking the rather valuable vase (the students all thought it was fake, to be quite honest) out of his hands, spilling its contents, which had been some sort of viscous mix of honey and feathers, right onto Mrs. Sacksville-Baggins _his dreadful aunt and history teacher._

The entire debacle had been absolutely horrendous.

"Mahal, no," the teen folded into the too-small desk in front of him gasps in faux horror, sarcasm dripping from his words, oozing off the admittedly striking planes of his face. Bilbo doesn’t even know what a ‘Mahal’ is, but he’s willing to bet it’s got something to do with that ridiculous ‘gang’ Durin has set up, calling themselves the Company of Thorin Oakenshield. And he certainly wishes that ‘Mahal’, whatever it is, sees fit to bring misery upon Thorin. "Not the _permanent record_! Now I'll never be valedictorian, even though the next runner up has twice as many detentions as I'll ever get. Universities won't even _look_ at me once they see this scandal!"

"Are. Are you mocking me?" Bilbo Baggins, honor student extraordinaire, future linguistics (PhD, he hoped very much) expert, and first in the class ranking, drew himself up to his full height of just barely 5'1. 

"Yes, yes I am," Thorin 'Oakenshield' Durin, delinquent and the school's greatest menace-aside from Azog and Bolg, of course-, casually blew a bubble with the offensively green gum in his mouth, letting it pop insolently into the silence. 

"Well, stop it, this instant," Bilbo fumes, leveling his best glare at the other. 

"Yes, ma'am, right after I clean up for the family meal and finish my English essay!" Durin replies, his falsely bright tone a stark contrast to the deadpan expression on his face. 

Bilbo narrows his eyes in what he hopes is an appropriately threatening expression.

“Look, I really, really don’t want to be here. And no offense, but you’re not exactly the most pleasant of company,” he crosses his arms resolutely, his jaw set as he stares Durin down.

“I fail to see how that could not be offensive,” the other scowls, his impressive jawline rich with tension.

“That’s why I’m the honor student here,” Bilbo mutters to himself, clearing his throat before continuing on as if Thorin had not spoken at all. “So I’d rather we just got along. And if the only way to do that is to simply…not talk to each other, I’m perfectly alright with that. I just want to get this over with, alright?”

The words pour out of him, and he suddenly deflates, feeling very much exhausted-that late-night studying finally catching up, he supposes, a wry twist to his lips. Already half-immersed in his own thoughts, Bilbo almost misses Durin’s answer, a single, bored word.

“Whatever.” Three syllables of abject apathy, as if Bilbo’s little speech had meant utterly nothing. Well, then.

“Fine,” Bilbo echoes, whirling to sit as far as possible across the room from the other. It sounds weak, even to his ears, but Bilbo ignores the urge to say something else, to follow it up with a remark of devastating wit (never mind that he hasn’t actually come up with one, yet).

Durin seems content to lapse into silence, his eyes trained on the ceiling tiles and his face pensive, from what Bilbo can see-not that he’s staring, of course, it’s simply that he has to turn that way to fish his homework out of his backpack. And he just so happens to catch a glimpse of Thorin Durin while doing so. Really, it’s pure coincidence.

Sure, Durin’s attractive, but so are several other males-like Thranduil Oropherion-Greenleaf, and Bard Bowen, and even Azog, who has earned the ridiculous but not necessarily unfounded nickname of ‘the Defiler’, is vaguely attractive. Well, that last one is stretching it.

Smaug, is, too, though Bilbo prefers not to think of that. After all, that’s what ignited the spark between them, a spark that quickly spread into an out-of-control conflagration. Bilbo is just happy the other conceded to him, though he’s still antsy around Smaug, still sees a dark glimmer in those almost molten-gold eyes.

Bilbo shakes his head, a frown tugging at his lips as he tries to focus on the numbers scrawled on the page before him-bebother and confusticate that bloody physics teacher and his inability to type! All his worksheets are written by hand, then photocopied, making his already illegible handwriting even worse.

He pauses to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose-he really needs to get those tightened, now that he thinks on it, they’re a terrible inconvenience, always sliding too low.

Bilbo taps his pencil against his lip absentmindedly, slowly losing himself to the numbers, the melodic scratch of pencil on paper, the way everything seems to line up into a solution. Physics has never been his favorite subject, though he can’t deny that he’s good at it-even if it’s only because he puts in the extra hour every night to make sure he stays that way.

“Are you aware that you’re muttering to yourself?”

Bilbo instantly mourns his perfect concentration, attained for only ten minutes. He knows that he won’t be able to slip back into it, not when it’s been shattered like that. By _that._

“Yes, I am,” he replies, long-suffering and exasperated. “Force of habit.”

“Break it.” And is that an _order_? Bilbo raises his eyebrows, slowly turning to face Durin, who’s still chewing that gum-does he have an oral fixation that manifests itself in the most annoying way possible?-with the same, utterly serious, unflappable expression on his face.

“Soon as you break your oral fixation,” Bilbo snaps back, eyes widening mid-sentence as he realizes what he’s just said. _Too late to take it back_ , he thinks to himself, rather ruefully, though the half of him that comes from his mother and her Took blood exults in his newfound sass. Really, he’s usually a lot better at reigning it in.

“I don’t have an…oral fixation,” Durin furrows his brow, regarding Bilbo with something akin to curiosity in his eyes.

“Mhmm,” Bilbo sounds out, inflecting as much sarcasm into the low hum as possible. If he’s going to do this, he might as well do it right.

“I don’t,” Durin repeats in protest, the brows now lowering down to his natural glower.

“Of course not,” Bilbo agrees, nodding his assent.

“I don’t.”

“We have established that already, yes? Yes,” Bilbo replies for him, turning back to switch physics for English, a two paragraph analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141.

_“In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,_   
_For they in thee a thousand errors note;_   
_But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,_   
_Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;_   
_Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,_   
_Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,_   
_Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited_   
_To any sensual feast with thee alone:_   
_But my five wits nor my five senses can_   
_Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,_   
_Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,_   
_Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be:_   
_Only my plague thus far I count my gain,_   
_That she that makes me sin awards me pain.”_

_I hate Elizabethan English_ , he groans, running a hand through his unruly curls.

“Why?” Bilbo is confused for a moment, utterly lost before he realizes that he must have said that out loud.

“It’s unnecessarily complicated,” he replies, even more confused. Durin had sounded…almost civil.

“It’s beautiful.”

Well, he can’t say that he expected that. Nor the level of sincerity in Durin’s tone.

“In its own way, I suppose. Shakespeare is simply difficult enough to understand without the added issue of an entirely different syntax and vocabulary,” he elaborates at Thorin’s brief narrowing of his eyes.

“I see. The complexity makes it beautiful. There’s something to be said for writing that makes you think, no matter how obsolete it is,” Durin continues on, blithely unaware of the mild state of shock that Bilbo is in. If anyone had told him he’d be discussing bloody Shakespeare with Thorin Durin in detention, of all places, he would have taken them to the hospital immediately for a psychiatric evaluation.

“I…suppose you’re right,” Bilbo admits, albeit grudgingly. This entire day has been utterly, completely bizarre.

“I usually am,” Durin informs him, the smug note immediately snapping his former dislike firmly into place, adhering it there without hope of removal.

Bilbo feels the inexplicable urge to punch him in the face.

These next three weeks were going to be very, very long, and very, very trying.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thorin, the plot emerges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kind of blown away at the response to this fic, honestly. I'm so happy you guys like it so much <3  
> I tried to be quick with this chapter update v.v

Dwalin is waiting for him as soon as he leaves the detention room, his stride long and purposeful and anything but relaxed.

“How’d it go wi’ Mr. Know-It-All?” he asks, a gruff note of teasing evident in his voice.

“Fine,” Thorin tries not to snap, though he can’t claim any modicum of success at it. He’s not entirely sure _how_ to answer Dwalin, if he’s completely honest with himself. It wasn’t torturous, he wasn’t subject to any lectures-he’d nipped one in the bud, and was rather relieved to have dodged that metaphorical bullet.

He just hadn’t expected to find certain things that Bilbo Baggins did _endearing_. Or strangely adorable.

“Fine, eh?” Dwalin gives him a look that’s entirely too knowing for him to be comfortable with, and so Thorin simply chooses to elbow him, hard, in the side.

“Fuck,” he curses, his voice gone unnaturally high with a wheeze as he near doubles over.

“No thanks,” Thorin replies flippantly, falling into their old pattern with ease. “I’m not as desperate as you are.”

“Only because yer more desperate than I’ll eve’ be,” Dwalin retorts in a huff, giving him a glare purely out of habit.

“Keep telling yourself that,” he mumbles, though it’s half-hearted, lacking most of the emphatic bravado it usually holds.

“What, was it that bad?” Dwalin asks, cocking a pierced eyebrow.

“He hates Elizabethan English,” Thorin offers the tidbit in way of an answer, a bit helplessly.

“Al…right?” Dwalin runs antsy fingers through the tuft of hair that is his Mohawk, drawing out the word into a confused question.

“It was fine,” Thorin repeats,shaking his head. It’s time to be done with the topic-he doesn’t need to dwell on the thought of a head of burnished bronze-gold curls and eyes like spring “What’d I miss?”

“Ah, nothin’ much. Nori bein’ a little bitch an’ stealin’ my gloves, Balin chewin’ us out for almost fightin’ wi’ Azog again, though that piece o’ shit’s the one that started it-an’ Balin knows it, but the Principal was near an’ you know how evil that man is,” Dwalin shakes his head, mouth twisted down into a scowl.

Thorin grunts, noncommittal-he doesn’t need to say what Dwalin already knows, that the missing gloves are revenge for leaving Nori to wake up alone during their last tryst. Nori’s always been vindictive in that passive-aggressive way, ridiculously good at getting under people’s skin, riling them up. Thranduil reserves a special hatred for the rust-haired member of Thorin’s little cadre, and Nori returns it with hatred edged with flirtation, the sort that has Dwalin twitching in jealousy.

Thorin has long given up trying to puzzle out the intricacies of their relationship, and he strongly suspects that Dwalin hasn’t figured them out, either.

“Tha’s about it, though. You sure nothing happened in detention?” Dwalin probes, his voice dropping into a completely unnecessary whisper.

“It was fine-I’ve said so nearly a dozen times by now,” Thorin snaps, narrowing his eyes at his best friend. Dwalin only pushes his buttons because he cares, though this particular line of questioning does nothing but frustrate Thorin. “We probably won’t murder each other by the time the three weeks are up, what more do you want me to say?”

“Murder each other, eh? I heard there were some wagers flying around, wagers involving a smaller murder-la petit morte, right? Only fuckin’ thing I know from French.” Thorin doesn’t even bother to point out that Erebor High doesn’t actually offer French, and if it did, he’s absolutely certain that Dwalin would have opted for German anyway. It was, after all, what he, Balin, and Dwalin based their own Khuzdul off of.

He wonders if Bilbo Baggins would be interested if he shared that bit of information, if his eyes would widen in admiration if he learned that Thorin had practically made up his own language.

“I’d rather you not bet on my personal life,” Thorin mutters, contenting himself with a dark glower hurled at Dwalin. “Though I’ll have you know that nothing of that sort happened. He yelled at me, I just agreed and tuned him out, and then he read Shakespeare and did physics homework.”

Of course, Thorin would never mention how the words seemed to roll off Bilbo Baggins’ tongue as if they were made solely for him, or how adorable he found it that Baggins muttered to himself while working. In his defense, though, Bilbo Baggins was largely thought of as the cutest boy in school-a title Thorin thought he’d never hear again after primary school, though in this case, he couldn’t quite disagree with it.

With wildly curly hair, large hazel eyes, and a smile profuse with dimples and happiness, Thorin could safely agree with the assessment of the school’s small female population. He only wished that Dwalin didn’t know it.

“Sounds borin’,” he grunts out, shoving his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans. Thorin shrugged again; it had been boring, ridiculously uneventful, just like detention without any of his few friends usually was.

“Yeah,” he flicks his eyes upwards, shifting his backpack’s weight on his shoulder. “Too bad I have to go back again tomorrow, it’s a fucking waste of my time.”

“Shit happens, so deal with it. ‘Sides, you ain’t happy to spend more time with Baggins?”

“Shut _up_ , Dwalin.” Thorin groans-he’s beginning to think that Dwalin will never let him live it down. It’s not _his_ fault the vase ended up broken because Bilbo had run into him. And it’s not like the other had turned out to be particularly good company, what with the heated glares and general pretense that Thorin didn’t exist.

It was going to be such a long three weeks.

“Durin.”

“Azog,” he states coolly, irritating flickering up into an inferno of rage, his usual reaction to Azog’s bulldog face, pale and scarred. He’s imposing, sure, nearly a foot taller than Thorin-who is 6’1, by the way, and should never be towered over-and muscled all over from fights and football, with piercing eyes sunken too deep over a nose that presides over his face with a baleful glare, and a mouth perpetually curled into a sickening smirk. Thorin hates him. Absolutely despises the shitstain.

“How was detention?” he drawls out, hands in his pockets as if he’d only just happened across them. Thorin’s willing to bet that the asshole had been lying in wait since school ended, and his stomach turns at the thought.

“Seeing as how you were most likely eavesdropping,” Thorin responds caustically, “I’d say you already know the answer to that.”

“Eavesdropping? Me? No, Durin, you just need to learn how to shut your mouth,” Azog laughs, a cruel, mocking thing, the sort of inhuman laugh that features in horror movie trailers.

“Or I can help you shut yours,” Thorin offers helpfully, a vicious grin in place on his own face. Dwalin chuckles darkly from beside him, drawing his enormous fists out of his pockets, knuckle-dusters sliding into view-Nori obviously has not deigned to return the gloves.

“No need for that, Durin,” Azog snickers, holding up his palms in a gesture of peace-one that Thorin doesn’t trust, he doesn’t think that Azog knows the meaning of the word.

“Then what do you want?”

“Just asking after you, and that adorable little Bilbo Baggins,” he tacks on Bilbo’s name as if it were an afterthought, rather than the focus of his entire sentence. Thorin almost growls at him, something dark and animalistic rising in his chest, and he thinks that he finally understands what his father had said about madness running deep in his family’s blood. Bilbo Baggin’s name sounds _wrong_ on Azog’s tongue, as if he’s defiling it simply by speaking the words, the syllables too gentle, too sweet, to be spat out and savored by such a foul creature.

“He’s quite fine. Peeved about his spotless record being marred, though,” Thorin bites out the words, affecting indifference, though he rather thinks he’s failed, from the way Azog’s eyes widen in an almost sadistic glee.

“Wonder if he needs comforting,” Azog muses, running a hand through his hair that’s cropped too close to his scalp. “Wonder if he’d let me do the comforting.”

Thorin does snarl at this implication, filthy and disgusting and _wrong._

“What? He’s already taken up with Smaug, though that’s long finished. He’s clearly got a thing for bad boys,” Azog sneers, and Thorin stiffens-he hadn’t known that the Smaug thing was real, was anything beyond a rumor. Even if they were over,  now.

“Look here-,” Thorin starts hotly.

“Durin, please. Let me finish. I was about to propose something, a wager, of sorts. Between you and I, whoever wins little Bilbo Baggins’ heart first. Personally, I’d rather beat your face until it’s unrecognizably bruised-and that’d be doing everyone who sees you a favor, I assure you-but after Azanulzibar, we can’t be fighting as such. So this is a different sort of war, one that’ll decide the feud for good. What do you say?”

Azog grins, wide and white, his too-sharp canines catching the bloody red of the sunset.

“I’m in.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo/Thorin interaction :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bless, but it's been so long  
> I apologize profusely.

Bilbo supposes that he shouldn’t be surprised that he and Durin have fallen into an easy sort of rhythm in detention over the past two weeks-after all, you can’t possibly spent hours per week with someone and fight every second of it. He’s not precisely comfortable in the other’s presence, what with the omnipresent glower and the intensity of his stare-on Bilbo more than he knows what to think of it-, but he’s certainly used to him by now. And Bilbo would like to think they’ve developed an odd, but budding friendship. Of course, if someone had ever told him at the start of this that he’d end up finding Thorin attractive, and hoping to be friends with him, he would have scoffed in their face, and quite possibly laughed until he’d fallen over.

Though Bilbo does maintain that it is entirely Thorin Durin’s fault that he’s in this mess in the first place, that has no impact on their routine other than a few baleful glances when there’s nothing other to do than urge the clock to move faster.

“Aren’t you done yet?” Thorin’s deep rumble has him turning his head instinctually, abandoning the math that lay spread across his desk, the paper rife with scribbled numbers in neat lines.

“No, I am not,” Bilbo responds, perhaps a bit snippily, he thinks, a flicker of guilt lighting in his chest. “And I’ll thank you to remain silent until I am.”

“And how will I know when you’re done?” Durin raises a thick eyebrow, the metal ring newly installed in it catching the light that filtered through the window with a bright flash.

“You’ll know when I tell you, obviously,” Bilbo huffs, rolling his eyes at the other before shifting his focus back to that blasted integration problems-and the unit was just beginning, too. Perhaps he’d have to ask Lobelia for help with-

Absolutely not. He’d rather perish  by drowning in a puddle, naked, on national television, than ask Lobelia Bracegirdle, girlfriend of his cousin Otho, and the most greedy, self-absorbed human he had ever had the displeasure of meeting.

“Can’t you do this at home? Surely you’ve a better chance of concentrating there, in the quiet of your own room,” Thorin yet again breaks the silence-Bilbo almost missed the surly quiet of the first three days, as it now seemed that the delinquent had sprouted enough tongues to wag for several people.

“And can’t you bother someone at home? Surely your siblings would be amenable to that, in the comfort of their own house,” Bilbo shoots back, though he lets his pencil slip from his fingers to roll with a soft clatter onto the wood of the desk.

“Ah, but you’re far less likely to beat me over the head with the nearest available item,” Thorin flashes him a grin, the kind that would steal his breath if he didn’t know better, the kind that tugs his own lips into an unwilling reciprocation.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, especially not if there’s a conkers set at hand. I’m a fair hand at conkers, you know,” Bilbo nods to himself, holding in a chuckle at the utterly bemused look on the other’s face.

“What on earth is conkers?”

“I cannot believe you’ve never heard of conkers,” Bilbo responds with equal incredulity. “You, who can make sense of bloody Shakespeare, has no idea what conkers is? Do you live in Elizabethan England? Or perhaps in the lost kingdom of Erebor, your mind collecting dust while the dragon slumbers on?”

“Hilarious, Master Baggins,” Thorin grumbles out. “Even the idiots know that there were no dragons involved in that kingdom’s fall, only a rather horrific wildfire coupled with years of failed crops and political instability, leading to an inevitable governmental collapse with the coup d’état led by Dain II, followed by years of anarchy and economic breakdown.”

“And here I thought all you did in history class was sleep,” Bilbo blinks, quite honestly surprised. He’d never thought that Thorin was one to go to class, let alone pay enough attention to absorb facts like that. “You’ve many mysteries beneath that glower of yours, Master Durin.”

“Depends on if you’re a fan of mysteries or not,” Bilbo almost misses Thorin’s murmured words, his tone changed, his voice husky and laden with…with something Bilbo’s not sure he wants to identify. He does not, however, miss what is unmistakably and yet cannot possibly be a blush spreading across Thorin’s cheeks.

“Well, I,” he swallows, tamping down the flutter of nerves in his stomach that threatens to rise to his mouth, tying his tongue and stirring his words into an unintelligible mix. “I uh, must say that I am.”

“Oh,” is all that Durin manages to get out in response to that, his mouth opening before clamping shut again. Truth be told, it’s not the only odd thing that Thorin has said lately, though Bilbo has always brushed them off as the other’s rather obvious social ineptitude. Beneath all those glowers and piercings, and the rather dubious tattoos that Bilbo sometimes saw peeking out from under his shirt (along with a very impressive set of abs), Thorin was somewhat akin to a toddling bear cub.

“Yes,” Bilbo draws the word out, though he makes no other response, struggling to find a way to turn around the awkwardness that has settled rapidly in the room. He clears his throat, packing his papers into a folder-red, for maths-and slipping it into his backpack.

“It looks awful outside today,” Thorin speaks again-a new record for conversations he’s started between them, it must be. Bilbo chances a glance outside to see looming clouds, and telltale flashes of lightning in the distance, all confirming Thorin’s statement.

“Hopefully it can wait until after I get home, I’ll be soaked walking in that,” Bilbo frets, shuddering at the thought. He gets sick rather easily, and it’s only Monday-he can’t afford to catch cold and miss school because he’s too congested to even breathe properly. Oh, the work will take days to catch up on!

“You walk home?” Thorin stands up immediately, peering out the window to look at the sky once more. “Not in that weather, not at all.”

“Then how do you propose I get there?” Bilbo fires back, with more heat behind it than he intended.

“I’ll drive you,” Thorin informs him, as if it’s the most obvious solution.

“What?” Bilbo sputters, whirling around to stare at him in abject shock. He’s fairly sure that Thorin doesn’t even have a car, just a shiny, loud, black and chrome motorcycle that he parks just outside school grounds. And there is no way Bilbo is getting on that without a helmet, and quite possibly a full suit of body armor.

“I do have a vehicle, you know. Orcrist,” he sighs the name fondly, as if it were a tender lover of many years, instead of a monstrous mangled mess of metal and machine.

“It’s a death trap, with wheels!” Bilbo exclaims, his eyes wide.

“I’ve got two helmets?” Thorin offers, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

“And body armor?” Bilbo tries, dallying near his own pack.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snorts, gesturing for Bilbo to follow him out the door.

“It’s not time to leave yet,” Bilbo squeaks, slowly sliding his pack onto both shoulders. “We’ve still got-,”

“What, three minutes? They won’t care. I guarantee the teachers have all left already, they don’t want to be caught in that mess.”

“Well, I suppose if you’ve got a helmet,” Bilbo hedges, knowing he’s lost the battle. With every moment he tries to delay, the storm gets closer and closer.

“I do,” Thorin responds-and is that amusement on his face? Well then, Bilbo huffs, crossing his arms in front of his chest and resolutely marching out the door. “And I do have a license to drive my baby, you know. In case you needed proof that I wouldn’t kill you by taking you home on it.”

Bilbo merely sniffs, not wanting to admit that he had, in fact, needed such proof. 

"Come along, Bilbo," Thorin sighs, half-impatient, half-amused, though Bilbo shoots him his best impassive look, pretending that his heart most certainly did not just jump in his chest at the use of his name. He can't actually recall Thorin ever using it properly, so he supposes that this is a new development-and not an entirely unwelcome one. 

"Alright, alright." Bilbo takes a deep breath, stepping out of the classroom. The building is deserted, the lights overhead flickering on as they advance through the corridors; Bilbo has always found the motion-sensing lights eerie, and their fluorescent glow does nothing to offset the flashes of lightning drawing closer, visible through the enormous windows in the corridor. "The weather is horrendous, isn't it?"

A blast of cold air barrels into him as soon as they forced the double doors at the end of the hallway open, making Bilbo shiver, wishing he'd brought something more substantial than his cable-knit sweater.

"Absolutely awful, innit?"

Bilbo started at the new, drawling voice, deep and smooth and sinister. Azog. 

"Y-yes," Bilbo squeaks, immediately drawing closer to Thorin. Azog is bad news, even worse than Smaug-at least Smaug didn't have a criminal record, though the auburn-haired upperclassman had certainly been obsessed with fire.

"Be a shame if you had to walk him in that, love," Azog swaggers closer, his pale, sharp features alight with malice, some sadistic glee shining in his eyes. 

"It would, which is why I'm taking him home," Thorin places a protective hand on his shoulder, and Bilbo is mildly ashamed to say he nearly melted into the touch, taking a step into his solid warmth. 

"Oh, of course," Azog sneers, his face immediately twisting into something akin to a snarl, the next thunderous crash from above swallowing his words as he stalks away, sending Thorin one last, baleful look. 

"Ignore him," Thorin moves his hand away, and Bilbo tries not to shiver at the loss.

"R-right," he stammers out, ducking his head. "He's a bit of an arse, isn't he?"

"That's an understatement if I've ever heard one," Thorin chuckles, handing Bilbo a helmet as they approach his bike. Perhaps it isn't the monstrosity he's built it up to be-it's sleek and polished metal and leather, angular designs etched into carefully polished steel, the front bearing the name 'Orcrist' in a proud, swirling script. Thorin swings a leg over the bike, tugging a helmet on for himself with an ease born of practice, while Bilbo fumbles with his for a minute before it finally slides comfortably over his head. 

"Hop on behind me, and hold on tight," Thorin instructs, and Bilbo obeys immediately, scrambling onto the ridiculously tall bike with some difficulty. He hesitates before gingerly wrapping his arms around Thorin, clinging to him desperately as the engine roars to life beneath him, almost drowning out all other sounds. 

"Is it too late to start praying?" he nearly screams out, screwing his eyes shut as they begin to move. This is absolutely horrifying, and Bilbo doesn't know why he agreed at all. Sure, he's practically plastered against a undeniably attractive male he is getting to know, but he's on a motorcycle, wanting nothing more to close his eyes and pretend it's not happening, and he needs to give directions. Fantastic. At least the route home isn't complicated, simply long.

"Just continue on this way until you see Bagshot Row, it should come up in a mile or so," Bilbo yells over the din of bike, and Thorin nods in acknowledgement, revving the engine further as the first raindrops begin to fall, pattering down. 

"Shit," he vaguely hears Thorin mumble, and then they're going fast, faster than Bilbo could have ever imagined. All he can hear is the growling of the engine, the drumbeat of raindrops on his helmet. All he can feel is the slippery-slick seat of the bike beneath him as the sky pours down, and the warmth of Thorin at his front, solid and unmoving. The ride blends together into a single moment, stretching on forever, and Bilbo just knows he's going to be sore tomorrow from sitting like this and holding on for dear life. 

"Turn here," Bilbo leans forward-only to make sure Thorin hears him, of course-and calls out, holding tighter as the bike tilts dangerously, with Thorin rounding the admittedly sharp curve onto Bagshot Row. 

"Which house?" he shouts back, slowing down so Bilbo can see the numbers-well, try, at least. Visibility is nearly impossible with the rain pouring down like this, no he can't possibly let Thorin ride home in this. It'd be endangerment.

"That one, the last one," Bilbo points to the green door of Bag End, and Thorin dutifully stops just before the gate, leaving Bilbo to stumble off the bike ungracefully, his legs wobbly, feeling as if they were made of jelly. 

"Well, then. You almost did beat the rain," Thorin takes off his helmet, giving Bilbo another of those fluttery smiles. 

"You didn't, though," he frowns, staring at his shoes, quickly soaking with water. 

"I'll be perfectly fine, Bilbo Baggins."

"I don't think I could forgive myself if you weren't. Come in, wait the storm out," he tells Thorin, opening the gate and dashing down the path to the shelter provided by the overhang just before the door. 

"I can-," Thorin starts to argue, his brow furrowing.

"Please," Bilbo adds softly, fishing out his spare key, the door to his home swinging open. He turns, meeting Thorin's gaze with a pleading look, his eyes wide in the look that his mother always calls irresistible. 

"Very well," Thorin sighs, finally conceding. He thuds down the path and into Bag End, looking too-big for the cozy little home he calls his own, and very much at a loss as to what to do. 

Bilbo belatedly realizes that he is, too. 


End file.
